122 Professor Curisrison on the Petroleum of Rangoon. 
limate. When heated in the open air, it catches fire, and burns 
with a dense white flame and much black smoke. 
Petroline is insoluble in water, cold or boiling. Boiling al- 
cohol takes up a small quantity, not more than a 450th of its 
weight, and on cooling deposites the greater part in minute shin- 
ing crystals. Boiling ether, its proper solvent, easily takes up a 
fifth of its weight, which on cooling is in a great measure sepa- 
rated in a congeries of micaceous crystals, so abundant as appa- 
rently to convert the ether into a solid mass. Oil of turpentine 
also dissolves it in large quantity, and so does naphtha. 
Caustic potass and. caustic ammonia in solution have no visi- 
ble effect on this substance. When boiled with it, it simply 
fuses, rises to the surface, and is there found, on cooling, with its 
usual properties. Concentrated muriatic, nitric, and sulphuric 
acids are equally without action, even when aided by the heat 
necessary to boil each. It simply melts and rises to the surface, 
and, except that it becomes slightly yellow with nitric, and slight- 
ly brown with sulphuric acid, no change of property is percepti- 
ble. It has no action with acetic or oxalic acid. 
With iodine aided by a gentle heat, it quickly unites, form- 
ing a violet-coloured fluid, which on cooling becomes a dirty. 
greenish-brown. solid, very soluble, like each of its elements, in 
sulphuric ether. 
I have not made any inquiry into the other chemical rela- 
tions of petroline, my object at present being merely to establish 
its claims to be considered a new principle, distinct from any 
other hitherto known. In its properties it resembles. naphtaline 
more than any other substance ; but at the same time it differs 
from that body in very many respects. Naphtaline volatilizes at 
common atmospherical temperatures ; does not fuse under 180° 
Fahr. ; and, when heated a little above 400°, boils and sublimes 
in fine micaceous crystals. It is heavier than water. It forms 
a rose-coloured solution with acetic or oxalic acid; and with sul< 
phuric acid it unites to form a peculiar acid, termed the: Sulpho- 
